EVA1: Panasonic AU-EVA1! Announcement and latest updates

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The only way to do a proper release is to announce a camera and show footage day one. That stops speculation and uncertainty.
 
J.Brown said:
The only way to do a proper release is to announce a camera and show footage day one. That stops speculation and uncertainty.
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The only proper way (IMO) is to RELEASE the camera available for sale, accompanied by properly representative footage, on day 1. No pre-announcements, no endless speculation, just - bam, this just dropped and it is in stock today.

There was a time when "buzz" and "word of mouth" were viable and valid marketing tactics, but I fear today's hyper-short attention span society isn't compatible with such marketing techniques anymore.

If you want to drum up buzz and hype, you do so by saying something is coming, on such And such a date. And then on that date, you'd unveil the finished, working product, along with a note saying it is now available at professional retailers worldwide.

I'm assuming that would be more productive and lead to happier consumers than the recent cycle we have seen of first footage, then claims of it being fake footage, then pixel-peeping a youtube-recompressed video endlessly, then revisions and new firmware and preproduction issues and such.

I have to think people would prefer that, rather than the current deployment model. I mean, that worked brilliantly with the HVX2000 in 2005, but I don't think our ultraconnected society responds the same way anymore.

That'd be my advice, anyway -- keep it under wraps until it is ready for sale.

(Then again, these products are made and sold by multibillion dollar megacompanies, they probably know their business a lot better than I do.)
 
Sttratos said:
Good move. If it isn't finished I don't know why they released anything. It's just trouble. Have their not heard about first impressions sticking?
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Because people ***** endlessly and say stuff like "it must not be any good" or "they're hiding something" or even "it's imaginary, the camera doesn't even exist, it's just a design proposal" if they don't.

So they do. And then people ***** about perceived faults or drawbacks they see in the footage, which as often as not are recompression issues, grading issues, or preproduction issues.

If you see any footage from a preproduction camera, it is inherently always going to have preproduction issues. If there were no issues left to resolve, then it would be a production camera, and if it's a production model, they would put it in production and make it available for sale.

The only way I can think of to avoid the cycle of bitching, is to avoid creating any releasable footage from a preproduction camera. Which means using a production camera. Which means no footage will be seen until the product is available for sale.
 
Mitch Gross said:
Whenever you move away from a Native ISO you are going to cut into the available dynamic range. For instance, setting the EVA1 to Native 800 ISO and then gaining down to 400 ISO effectively means that you are overexposing by one stop and then darkening everything to compensate. By overexposing you lose one available stop at the top of the range before highlights would clip, but it also means that the very bottom of the exposure range is getting pushed down into blackness when you compensate the overall brightness. So you go from 14 stops of DR to 13, but you also take the noise at the bottom of exposure and shove it into the black.

This is a fairly common practice to hide any noise in an image, and having a large DR makes it easy because frankly you don't really need all of that range most of the time. But if you only had 7 stops and went down to 6, it would get mighty ugly mighty fast.

Dual Native ISO works the same way, but you get two options for starting points. In Native 800 ISO the gain range is 200-2000 and in Native 2500 ISO the gain range is 1000-25,600. While there is some overlap, generally I would prefer to switch to Native 2500 ISO fairly early, maybe anything above 1250.
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Thanks for this post Mitch. Really great info for shooters/cameras in general.
 
It seems to me that Panasonic's marketing has been next to peerless:
The timing of the announcement of the EVA1 immediately caused doubt for those who would have otherwise strongly considered the C200.
The pre-production models have given filmmakers something to whet the appetite via the released films and - importantly - almost certainly fed the tech people at Panasonic detailed, in-the-field data that's feeding back into the refinement of the camera's firmware.
When the camera comes out in October (I don't bet, Mitch!) I have no doubt it will have addressed many of the concerns that have been raised and then the reviews will follow and we can, at last, make a decision.
I've been using Canon for years and this device feels like it could be the start of a potential sea change in this part of the market. Time will tell...
 
Sttratos said:
Good move. If it isn't finished I don't know why they released anything. It's just trouble. Have their not heard about first impressions sticking?
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Perhaps because of the overwhelming requests for footage from the camera as soon as possible....and reading between the lines it's already clear IMO, that the camera will deliver a stunning image...early footage requested, is not unlike DVXUser members requesting footage from Noel, that will stress the camera to extremes...they want to see the good with the bad...I only need to see the good the camera can do....after that, getting to that image, becomes my responsibility...
 
Barry_Green said:
Because people ***** endlessly and say stuff like "it must not be any good" or "they're hiding something" or even "it's imaginary, the camera doesn't even exist, it's just a design proposal" if they don't.

So they do. And then people ***** about perceived faults or drawbacks they see in the footage, which as often as not are recompression issues, grading issues, or preproduction issues.

If you see any footage from a preproduction camera, it is inherently always going to have preproduction issues. If there were no issues left to resolve, then it would be a production camera, and if it's a production model, they would put it in production and make it available for sale.

The only way I can think of to avoid the cycle of bitching, is to avoid creating any releasable footage from a preproduction camera. Which means using a production camera. Which means no footage will be seen until the product is available for sale.
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I'm with you in your first post. Keep it under wraps until it is ready for sale then release camera without announcement, footage and everything together. No half year ahead announcements.

But if not possible I say the option in your last paragraph here is the best. Avoid creating any releasable footage from a pre production camera. Wait till the camera is ready. Yes people will complain and come up with conspiracy theories. But once the camera is ready and footage is shown, if the camera delivers they will forget all that. Better than releasing lackluster and problematic footage which just creates problems and bad rep.
 
I'm sure we all wish Barry's comments were the reality, but it's never so simple.

The sub-$10k cinema camera market is small and niche. Every C200 sold is one less EVA1 sold, and I believe that in this game, that matters a lot.

Undoubtedly, Canon and Panasonic were aware of each other's plans to launch such a camera, whether through Le Carré-levels of espionage or mundane shared suppliers leaking info. The C200, though seemingly more focused in design and purpose, still seems rushed to market. (I'm surprised I haven't heard more complaints about the exhaust vent being on the left side. This seems nuts to me, but maybe it's not such a big deal.)

The EVA, in return, seems to have a more everything-and-the-kitchen-sink approach. Still, they're priced and targeted at the same group of potential customers, likely people who were eyeing the Ursa Mini at some point.

Canon beat Panasonic to the punch, and given its bigger brand name, Panasonic had to respond. And yes, this is the result, good or bad. (For the record, I really dug the short films from the EVA, and think we've all gone way too crazy with the pixel peeping.)

Did Panasonic's gamble pay off? Were they able to sow seeds of doubt in the minds of people, cash in hand, ready to buy a C200? I think they did, but I don't know for sure.

Lastly, I also think that if the EVA doesn't sell well, we won't see another camera like this from Panasonic again.
 
I don't follow GoPro hype - but I heard of the 6 yesterday and there was one in my local camping/adventure store today - not photo dealer camping store!
 
My take that everyone is clamoring for (oh, pipe down) is that these type pre-releases create a free marketing campaign for the manufacturers off sites like this (and the rumor mills and the video streamers/rumor mills). The only real problems happen in cases like the BMD, where the actual deliveries lag for as long as a year after the pre-announcements. But, even then, what hurts BMD the most is that their product lacks quality control upon that much awaited delivery.

And, in the overall marketing scheme, how different is this from other industries? Rumors of a mid-engined 2018-19 Corvette, turbocharged 2018-19 Toyota Supra/BMW M4, new Mustang have been around for over a year and new autos have a far longer introduction/teasing cycles than a camera. To me, this is how things are in 2017. The key still lies in delivering a quality product. That's what gives manufacturers the right to excite its potential customers. In other words, not many are going to auto sites to read the updates on a new Yugo.

PS. The problem with the footage is separate and different in entirety. By posting clips on YouTube/Vimeo, every manufacturer surrenders to the YouTube compression and allowed bit-rate. One way to play around it for the majors is to pay YouTube to allow a higher bit rate on its clips. The other - and arguably far more achievable - choice is to have a 4/5/6 K video on own site, where the interested parties can both view it online and download it. If Steve Yedlin, smaller in size than Panasonic, had a 6K video on his site ...
 
I had the option to go for either Eva 1 or C200 and went for C200 as it appeared to be the most reliable option and a relative short span from release to when it was in stores. No real hiccups on the way it just arrived in time. And it's a known tool for many that have been using C300/C100 for years.
 
The part where I get skeptical is, it is difficult to buy that any multibillion dollar company with a major product launch - who does not even want to reveal specs upon announcement for fear of showing something before it's done - has launched these films as "alpha" footage previews. The footage was clearly budgeted and intended to be their jaw-dropper camera premiere. And why wouldn't it be?

How many of us here rent out theaters and show all of our clients family and friends our latest film - in a prototype form?

I'm not saying the camera won't improve. 2-3 months of firmware revisions, tweaking and time is huge. So is receiving feedback from the community about problem spots. Thankful for that. Just hard to buy the back-tracking line of "hey now, I mean, it's a pre-production model." We all know this is the best foot forward at the time of presentation.

What I *DO* buy is: "Hey, we have heard your feedback, and we believe our engineers have time to work hard and address these concerns. We are confident in our ability to improve high ISO performance and have already seen substantial results, and continue to work hard in tweaking other image parameters as well. We look forward to showing you our best foot forward, ACT II - coming soon. We think many of your concerns will be set to rest."

Great with that - just don't love the whole re positioning and downplaying of what was clearly intended to be the main launch push of content. I am also aware that the camera has been in development for YEARS - we're 30 days from launch. Only so much can be done.

At the end of the day I have zero doubts the EVA-1 will be great. Some may not prefer its aesthetic (myself included - taking a wait and see approach. Hopefully some hands on tweaking and post work can make it shine for my personal preferences of image look).

hey, here's another thought: so many of us here (self included) are hungry for that more organic cinema look and have reservations about the somewhat overly clinical, digital look. Psychologists have shown that we all "prefer what we are used to." Modern filmmakers are pushing the envelope here. Perhaps culture is already shifting. Hyper crisp clear imagery may be all the rage in the coming years, which could give the EVA-1 a very definitive edge. Also, while it is *not* the same as an out-of-camera more organic looking image (so many variables contribute to that), it is worth noting that softening an overly sharp image is much easier than trying to make it sharper.

I hope whether it's my cup of tea or not, that the EVA-1 sells extremely well, as Panasonic has my favorite camera designs and I want to see them in the game. Even if I end up not loving the EVA-1, if it does well, perhaps we'll see another camera launch in the future more in tune with what I may be personally after. Either way, my cup of tea remains half full!
 
filmguy123 said:
The part where I get skeptical is, it is difficult to buy that any multibillion dollar company with a major product launch - who does not even want to reveal specs upon announcement for fear of showing something before it's done - has launched these films as "alpha" footage previews. The footage was clearly budgeted and intended to be their jaw-dropper camera premiere. And why wouldn't it be?

How many of us here rent out theaters and show all of our clients family and friends our latest film - in a prototype form?

I'm not saying the camera won't improve. 2-3 months of firmware revisions, tweaking and time is huge. So is receiving feedback from the community about problem spots. Thankful for that. Just hard to buy the back-tracking line of "hey now, I mean, it's a pre-production model." We all know this is the best foot forward at the time of presentation.

What I *DO* buy is: "Hey, we have heard your feedback, and we believe our engineers have time to work hard and address these concerns. We are confident in our ability to improve high ISO performance and have already seen substantial results, and continue to work hard in tweaking other image parameters as well. We look forward to showing you our best foot forward, ACT II - coming soon. We think many of your concerns will be set to rest."

Great with that - just don't love the whole re positioning and downplaying of what was clearly intended to be the main launch push of content. I am also aware that the camera has been in development for YEARS - we're 30 days from launch. Only so much can be done.

At the end of the day I have zero doubts the EVA-1 will be great. Some may not prefer its aesthetic (myself included - taking a wait and see approach. Hopefully some hands on tweaking and post work can make it shine for my personal preferences of image look).

hey, here's another thought: so many of us here (self included) are hungry for that more organic cinema look and have reservations about the somewhat overly clinical, digital look. Psychologists have shown that we all "prefer what we are used to." Modern filmmakers are pushing the envelope here. Perhaps culture is already shifting. Hyper crisp clear imagery may be all the rage in the coming years, which could give the EVA-1 a very definitive edge. Also, while it is *not* the same as an out-of-camera more organic looking image (so many variables contribute to that), it is worth noting that softening an overly sharp image is much easier than trying to make it sharper.

I hope whether it's my cup of tea or not, that the EVA-1 sells extremely well, as Panasonic has my favorite camera designs and I want to see them in the game. Even if I end up not loving the EVA-1, if it does well, perhaps we'll see another camera launch in the future more in tune with what I may be personally after. Either way, my cup of tea remains half full!
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I agree with all of this. I wonder, maybe Pro-Mist Filters could help take the edge off the clinical look?
 
Barry_Green said:
The only proper way (IMO) is to RELEASE the camera available for sale, accompanied by properly representative footage, on day 1. No pre-announcements, no endless speculation, just - bam, this just dropped and it is in stock today.

There was a time when "buzz" and "word of mouth" were viable and valid marketing tactics, but I fear today's hyper-short attention span society isn't compatible with such marketing techniques anymore.

If you want to drum up buzz and hype, you do so by saying something is coming, on such And such a date. And then on that date, you'd unveil the finished, working product, along with a note saying it is now available at professional retailers worldwide.

I'm assuming that would be more productive and lead to happier consumers than the recent cycle we have seen of first footage, then claims of it being fake footage, then pixel-peeping a youtube-recompressed video endlessly, then revisions and new firmware and preproduction issues and such.

I have to think people would prefer that, rather than the current deployment model. I mean, that worked brilliantly with the HVX2000 in 2005, but I don't think our ultraconnected society responds the same way anymore.

That'd be my advice, anyway -- keep it under wraps until it is ready for sale.

(Then again, these products are made and sold by multibillion dollar megacompanies, they probably know their business a lot better than I do.)
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Today I was on The Go Creative podcast and this is exactly what I said about the EVA 1.
 
npm said:
I agree with all of this. I wonder, maybe Pro-Mist Filters could help take the edge off the clinical look?
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Only thing with diffusers is they have affect on other areas of the image as well, which may not be desirable. Radio 88 does have a significantly "better" (subjectively to me) look than the others, but it also exhibits excess highlight blooming and perhaps a little too much softness. There are also post options to introduce some subtle softening as an option too.

However, no solution outside of the raw sensor capture will be perfect - they all introduce some level of compromise. There are certain looks that may be able to be closely imitated, but not truly replicated. The initial footage I have seen so far has a very different feel to it than the LT footage I have seen, and I am not sure how close that can be approximated with extra-camera solutions - but again, it is too early to really tell.

Galleddrim said:
Some props to EIS in there. Interesting. Can't wait to see how it actually performs.
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Their description does indeed sound very promising. Hard to tell how critical someone's eye is with this, and how the EIS performs, say, if trying to perform a subtle camera movement VS just holding steady. I doubt it can match up to GH5 IBIS (nor would I expect it to), and I am worried about an weird electronic affects on the image (ie warp stabilizer, gopro EIS stabilizer, etc.) - but this certainly sounds promising. Excited to see more.
 
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